A few weeks shy of his 100th birthday, Hall of Fame college basketball coach Lou Carnesecca passed away on Saturday surrounded by friends and family.
Carnesecca led St. John’s for 24 seasons across two different stretches, winning over 500 games and leading the Red Storm to a pair of Big East tournament titles and an appearance in the Final Four in 1985.
Affectionately nicknamed ‘Looie’, Carnesecca endeared himself to the notoriously fickle New York media and fanbase, becoming the face of the local college basketball program while leading the Johnnies to the postseason every year of his career.
Carnesecca is the namesake of St. John’s home arena in Queens, and a statue was built of the legendary coach and unveiled before the 2021-22 season.
The Big East began in 1979 and quickly established itself as a premier basketball conference, with Carnesecca and St. John’s a huge part of that early success. Chris Mullin, Mark Jackson, and Walter Berry are among the superstars that came through Carnesecca’s program, helping to put the program and the conference on the map.
Carnesecca was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1992, the year he retired, and was remembered fondly by those who interacted with him – even folks who were on the opposite side.
“I don’t know if there’s anybody else in coaching like him,” former UConn coach Jim Calhoun once told the Hartford Courant. “Even if people hate the Big East, nobody hates Looie. If you like basketball, you like Looie. If you like kids, you like Looie.”
Carnesecca is survived by his wife of 73 years, Mary.